


Head Over Heels

by Shr0udme



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Casual Sex, Drunk Kara Danvers, Drunk Lena Luthor, Drunk Sex, F/F, Halloween, Or Is It?, Spanking, potentially dub-con in a "they're both drunk and Lena's in a dominatrix costume" kind of way, spoiler alert: it's not, top!Lena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-10 23:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16464650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shr0udme/pseuds/Shr0udme
Summary: Kara is surprised when Lena shows up to a Halloween party dressed as Bettie Page, and even more surprised when she takes the role too seriously.





	Head Over Heels

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this around Halloween last year, so this assumes a canon timeline up to s03e02 "Triggers" -- AKA the episode where Lena goes all "scary hot boss lady" on Kara. Being posted now bc I found it in my old docs and thought "'tis the season."
> 
> **See end notes for German translation**

Their cab driver's name is Luka and he's dressed as a viking, complete with horned hat and fake fur sagging off his shoulders. Through a series of clumsy, ill-conceived questions, Kara gleans his age, his height, and that his accent is German.

Lena says something in his native tongue that sounds to Kara like chewing gum and talking at the same time, but her gaze is on the tight cinch of the black lace underwear at Lena's waist, the garter hooks attached to dark hose, the smooth bend of exposed skin from her hip to her thigh. 

Lena must be cold.

She's never been one for sexy on Halloween, has always gone for novel or scary. She hadn't pegged Lena for the type, either, but she showed up to the bar with vintage lingerie on and a whip in her hand.

  


_"Bettie Page!" Alex shouted, four liquor drinks in, pink already showing through the dark paint on her nose._

_Feeling compelled to receive Lena, whose pin-up girl bravado appeared to be fading fast among all the more heavily-clad strangers, Kara stepped forward with an outstretched hand._

_"You have bangs." It wasn't a question, but it sounded like one, and Kara's face looked confused, her mouth deciding whether or not to smile. Lena's cheeks went pink even under thick makeup, and she took Kara's hand like it was hers to take._

_"It's a wig," she ducked her head, free fingers tugging at the ends of the thing. "A very expensive wig, but a wig."_

  


Kara smooths her hand over her gingham dress, thumbs the buttons at her chest. She's given her address without thinking, assuming Lena would chime in with her own. Instead, Lena has taken to having a stilted conversation in German, interspersed with their driver's awkward laughter. She wonders if Lena's German is as impeccable as she imagines, or if Luka is just humoring her.

Every bump the cab goes over makes her limbs feel like they'll detach from their joints. She hadn't meant to get this drunk, but all of her friends were in one place and happy, or at least putting on a decent act of it. One drink turned into three, turned into playing quarters with James until the quarters started dissolving into the alcohol. If Lena noticed, she didn't remark.

"Sie ist niedlich, ja?" Lena addresses Luka, one hand in a tight grip on his headrest. He and Lena both look over at Kara, and she squirms. They're looking at her like they know something she doesn't, and she's not sure she likes it. She tugs at one of her braids.

"I can count in German! Eins, zwei, drei – that's it. Just to three." 

Lena and Luka both look at each other again, and Kara's thankful they're in standstill traffic or all these _looks_ would put Lena in the emergency room. A smile spreads over Luka's funny German face. Lena's goes soft and she leans close, so close to Kara that the pale strip of skin between her underwear and hose touches Kara's leg.

"Ja. Dein kumpel?"

Lena gruffly slings her arm over Kara's shoulder. She smells like she's smelled all night, like pumpkin pie and a pre-game tumbler of expensive whiskey.

"Kumpel? Wuerde ich so sagen."

"Deine feste freundin?" There's playfulness in Luka's tone, and she feels Lena's fingertips dance over her right shoulder in contemplation.

"Wie sagt man ... in another life?"

Kara pouts, her needy lizard brain burrowing her body closer to Lena's, resting a cheek on the solid jut of her exposed shoulder. She looks down; from this angle, Lena's thighs form a perfect V where they meet her – other parts. She must be really, really cold.

When they get to Kara's building, Lena hurriedly shoves a messy stack of crisp bills in Luka's face before tripping over her stiletto heels on the way out of the car and nearly face-planting on the sidewalk. She bends to catch herself, and Kara looks away from the sight out of a deranged sense of honor, choosing to smile at their hapless driver and wish him a Happy Mischief Night. By the time she looks back, Lena has righted herself, and they make their way inside.

Kara feels heavy all over as they step into the elevator. There's a muzak version of Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears playing, and she notices half-way through the ride that she and Lena are both mouthing the lyrics. 

It’s about the same time that she notices Lena is there at all, instead of sitting in a cab half-way back to her own apartment.

"Sleeping over?" The words come out like toddler speech and Lena just grins and nods, hooking her arm into Kara's as the elevator dings and they step off.

"You shouldn't be left alone, you're – you're too drunk." Lena looks earnest, patting Kara's back while she frets over the key in the lock. She's seen Lena wine-drunk once, and she was magnetic and flirty and charming, even with purple-stained lips. 

Liquor-drunk Lena is a different animal, seems to go from grave to absurd in a matter of seconds. Kara doesn’t know whether she wants to hug her or wiretap her apartment.

They both clamor through the door once it's opened, Lena immediately flopping down on the couch to remove her heels. Kara stands with her back to one of the kitchen counters and considers the dishes in the sink, the stack of mail that's been sitting on the table for days, the sickly sweet smell of her trash. 

Ever since Lena became her shiny new boss and they had their _spat_ , she's had zero time for chores, or bills, or general non-work activities. A weird, resentful tug at her gut makes her square her shoulders.

There's some commotion near the couch, some huffing and cursing as Lena... takes her clothes off?

Kara's eyes go wide. Despite her earlier instinct for propriety, that same lizard brain walks her closer until she's standing feet away, mouth agape.

"Lena, what–"

"Too tight." Lena grumbles, peeling the last of the pantyhose off the tips of her toes. Her legs look long, and creamy, and it's like that small strip of skin from her costume has become unmitigated, expansive, more than you could hope for if you were into hoping for that sort of thing.

Lena gets up, walks over to Kara with her underwear still on and her arms wrapped over her breasts, covering them. She gets close to Kara, proxemics be damned.

"Can I trouble you for a shirt?"

Kara nods, quickly turns her eyes down and marches towards her clothes rack, counting her footsteps the whole way.

She gives her the first thing she finds, a designer camisole that she splurged on after realizing she looked like a beggar next to Lena. It’s in the running for the most expensive thing she owns. 

It’s also functionally see-through. 

When she hands Lena the shirt, it isn't even regarded before being tugged over her head. Kara continues to stare down at her own very interesting toes until she’s sick of bending her neck. She still hears Tears for Fears in her head, the words “and gentle persuasion” making her tongue click against the roof of her mouth.

As she looks up, Lena is still standing in front of her, white panties and now white shirt. Kara can see the stiff outline of her nipples through the fabric and wonders how cold it is in her apartment. Perhaps too cold for humans.

"You look like a ghost, Lena."

Lena's laugh is small and sputtering.

"Well you look like... " She pauses, her already glazed over eyes now practically cataracts. The grin hasn't left her face in minutes, and it might be funny if it wasn’t so unsettling.

"You look like a Halloween treat."

She is, in fact, dressed up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Somewhere back at the bar is Winn as the cowardly lion, Alex as the scarecrow, and James as the tin man. Alex suggested Lena be the Wicked Witch of the West, but Kara felt embarrassed asking, so Lena was left to her own devices.

Her own devices were decidedly scandalous. Kara was expecting some half-baked zombie makeup, or a witch’s hat and a work dress. In her head, Halloween is far too bourgeois for Lena. She heard her the year before, something about every day being _spooky_ for someone with constant threats on her life.

"Uummmm. Thanks." Kara stops, regarding Lena again with a studious gaze, forgetting that she's basically naked in front of her until her eyes fall back down to Lena's chest. She should get Lena a sweater, or something.

"You want a drink?"

"Water." Lena requests, plodding with heavy feet back towards the bed. Kara watches her curl into a fetal position above the covers, watches as the position causes her underwear to ride down her hips.

Her first thought is: _“inappropriate.”_

Her second thought is: _"that's some smooth skin.”_

And her third thought – which she says aloud – is:

"How about a vodka tonic?"

Lena's favorite, though she knows her friend is already at that wading in quicksand stage of drunkenness, her mouth no longer with a clear connection to her brain.

Over on the bed, Lena cranes her neck back, eyelids drooping.

"Trying to get me drunk, Miss Danvers?"

Kara laughs that long, trilling laugh that comes out of her mouth when she's nervous, though she doesn't feel nervous.

"You're already drunk, stupid."

Lena, listless and slow moving alcohol-soaked Lena, is in front of her in what seems like 1/16th of a second, spine straight, eyebrow raised. Kara watches that unique strain in her neck – she knows that strain – and swallows at the anticipation low, lower, _too_ low in her gut.

"What did you just call me?"

Kara's mouth opens so wide that Lena could probably fit her whole fist in it, not that Kara wants her to, not that it's the only thing she can think about now that the notion’s been planted in her mind.

Lena's jaw clenches, her mouth a razor slit. The dopey, drunken look on her face is replaced with a hard lucidity.

"I, I'm–"

"I didn't ask you to stutter, I asked you to repeat yourself. What did you call me?"

Lena holds her chin high, arms going to cross under her chest. Kara wonders how Lena could look so commanding, so terrifying in a see-through white shirt and cotton panties.

"Lena, I was just, it was just… a joke.. it was... I don't–"

Lena goes from raised brow to narrowed eyes, and she steps a foot closer, so close the flared hem of Kara's dress touches Lena’s thighs.

"Apologize."

"I'm–"

"Get on your knees, and apologize." 

Kara breathes deep through her nose. She's confused, and strange places are burning, her stomach, her ears, her – maybe she has to pee. That has to be it.

"Lena, please." It's meant to be a plea to reason, but comes out breathy and hoarse and what _exactly_ is happening?

Lena only narrows her eyes further, bare feet planted.

When Kara's knees hit the ground, the world shifts, her eyes feel like they're swimming inside her head. And then she hears a laugh above her, now another realm of existence, like some tier of heaven she's been cast out of.

Lena's hands are clutching at Kara’s shoulders, swiping and cupping her face.

"Kara, darling – I was kidding. I'm Bettie Page, remember?"

Kara closes her eyes. They're burning now, too. Lena finally manages a solid grip on her hand and she stands, wobbly but no worse for the wear.

"Gosh. _I'm_ the stupid one–"

Lena's breasts are pushed into hers, that's her immediate thought, then it becomes clear that she's being hugged, that Lena's arms are wrapped hard around her, one on her waist and another around her neck.

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry." She murmurs apologies tinged with laughter into Kara's shoulder for what seems like minutes before pulling away.

"I'm… I'm going to sleep now. If Atlas will stop tilting the world off its axis, that is."

Lena takes a few sure steps and then stumbles. Kara, without the common sense necessary to curb her powers, speeds to catch her.

It doesn't go as planned. They both end up a mess of limbs, half off the bed, half on. They giggle until Kara’s stomach muscles hurt and Lena shifts, pulling Kara and herself as far on the bed as she can manage.

Kara scratches at the braids in her hair, toes her ruby slippers off with a resulting thump-thump as they hit the floor. She sighs.

It's times like these that she's convinced she hates being drunk, hates the twisted, obtrusive thoughts that give her body impetus. The first time she had alien alcohol, she actually looked at Agent Vasquez and thought " _what a handsome lady. We should hug."_

And she did, she hugged Agent Vasquez for an awkward ten seconds before Alex cleared her throat and ended the confusing contact. Her drunk-thoughts are all tactile, all dysfunctionally sexual or intimate. Being around Lena like this is ill-advised. And yet...

"You being all scary hot boss-lady, it… I think my brain short circuits. It makes me feel so funny."

Lena doesn't laugh, doesn't scoff or sigh. Kara wonders if she even breathes before she speaks again.

"Scary hot?"

Wow, she'd said that part out loud. She thinks about pretending to be asleep, catatonic, maybe even dead.

"Pfft. Yeah. Whatever. It's whatever."

Lena is silent for so long, her breath becoming even and regular puffs, that Kara assumes her asleep.

But then, there's a thigh draped over her hip, dark hair tickling at her shoulder. Lena is propped up on an elbow, her face hovering far above Kara's. She isn't smiling. Her face looks curiously like it had minutes before, dark and steely and full of agency.

"Take your costume off."

It _is_ itchy, and a little tight on the chest, but she realizes this isn't a mere helpful suggestion. When she doesn't immediately comply, Lena presses her thigh harder against the point of Kara's hip bone.

"Take it off, Kara."

She sounds like she knows what she's talking about, like she's the authority on clothing removal, so Kara has no choice but to comply. She licks her lips, swallows, and begins the uncomfortable work of shimmying out of her dress.

Lena just watches.

When it's finally off and over her head, she tosses it somewhere in the bedroom, hears something clink and possibly break. It doesn't matter, because the window is open a crack and the crisp October air is cool on her skin, and Lena is–

Her mind goes back to the party, Lena posing for pictures with some guy in an executioner's costume, making him bend over with her whip positioned.

  


_"Kara! Take a picture of me and my new friend, Dale?"_

_Kara felt fizzy, like a freshly poured soda. Each time she saw Lena from across the room she made special care to acknowledge her, to smile and catch her eye. She'd expected her to be clingy, but she was a regular extrovert, popping back and forth between groups of people, making loud, bawdy statements in character that Kara failed to block out._

_She'd been poking and jockeying a big guy with a black sack over his head for the last 15 minutes, and though she could if she wanted, Kara did not listen in on the conversation._

_Lena handed off her phone and Kara noted the background photo, a selfie of them at the grand opening of some art gallery Lena had her very own collection in. She smiled, staring for a few seconds too long before thumbing over the camera button._

_"Say Happy Halloween!"_

  


Her mind then moves to Lena's second week at Catco, to the crossing of Lena's arms, to: _"Okay, let's talk about work."_

Her heart feels like it's outside of her body, pushing and straining itself against Lena's chest. 

She's in underwear, beige and boring, and she thinks her bra might even have a broken hook.

"My bra has a broken hook." She mumbles, feeling the words piddle out of her mouth like too much liquid. Lena ignores her, shifts herself until her thighs are on either side of Kara's hips. Kara has a vague and passing idea that she's already asleep and drooling, and this is some drunken fever dream that she'll have a guilty stomach ache over in the morning. That way, Lena would be at home, gentle and sleeping, all perfect in her matching pajamas and impressive linen thread count.

That Lena, best friend Lena, doesn't snore or drool, and she certainly doesn't straddle you in her underwear.

"Hey, you’re on top of–"

"Did I say you could talk?"

The question makes her stomach muscles clench, makes her skin feel tight. Lena lifts a bit and moves further up until her crotch is flush with Kara's exposed stomach. She can feel the fabric just below her belly button, and maybe it's warm, but she's on fire, is sure that her skin might melt Lena's fingers off if she hazards a touch.

"Did I _say_ you could _talk?_ "

Kara quickly shakes her head no. Her nipples are hard against the flimsy fabric of her bra and she's sure Lena can see, just like Kara saw Lena's through that stupidly expensive scrap of cloth.

And truly, she can still see them, can see them now better than ever as Lena arches her back above her. What would happen if she touched one? Just...reached out. It could be their secret, no one would ever have to know and they could just continue their lives with the hidden knowledge that Kara Danvers is a latent perv, at least when she's drunk.

"I liked your costume tonight."

"Kara!"

Lena bears down for emphasis, and yes, there is absolutely warmth pressing against Kara's stomach. 

Normally she wouldn't stare. Normally, she would flip her friend off of her and make her a cup of herbal tea, maybe ask if there's anything bothering her. But who wants to do that, what proper human could possibly ever want to stop someone that looks like this from straddling them, lording over them like an especially fleshy statue of a Greek goddess?

Kara spends every waking moment denying her desires, squelching her whims, and it's good, because it works. It keeps her safe.

Maybe, in this instant, half-naked and feeling a pitiful desire in her belly, she doesn't want to feel safe.

She reaches out. 

Her middle and forefinger start from the bottom curve of Lena's breast and stroke up. The fabric bunches and then falls. 

Lena, one second commanding and the next so pliant, rolling, willing to give up anything, she licks her lips. She licks her lips and makes a sound like she's just remembered she has to breathe to live.

It’s enough. Kara moves her hand down to the bottom of that ridiculous shirt, slides her flat palm underneath and tight against Lena's stomach. Just as she's moving closer, getting to her planned destination, there's a hand snapping around her wrist.

Lena smiles. There's still matte red lipstick on her mouth, unmarred. Her smile is sharp, biting, not like the smiles Lena normally reserves for Kara.

"I want you to turn over."

The gulp that snakes its way down Kara's throat feels like the swallowing of gravel. She tries to take her hand back, but Lena holds fast, her smile fading into a cruel purse of her lips.

"Now, Kara."

"But how can I – when you're–" She motions her free hand at Lena, who cocks a shoulder with a small jerking motion. To call it a shrug would be unseemly.

"I guess you'll just have to figure it out."

Kara tries to problem solve, really takes a good few seconds to rub the remaining two brain cells she has left together. She considers asking Lena to move, but she doesn't _want_ Lena to move. 

If she doesn't move, doesn't turn over, Lena will be very angry.

Lena lowers herself, either palm planted beside Kara's shoulders, and grinds down.

It's her only chance, so she takes it, grabs Lena and rolls her until Kara is the one on top. 

"That's not what I meant." Lena breathes out, displeased, and Kara has enough sense to flop off and onto her stomach.

She can feel her own breath on her face, hot and balmy against the bedspread. She doesn't know what Lena plans to do, and the thought makes her stomach feel like plants are germinating inside of it.

"Get on your knees."

She does it. She does it without thinking, without even asking herself if it makes sense.

There's a long stretch of uncomfortable stillness, Lena's breath, her strong heartbeat the only thing Kara bothers to listen to. Then there's a palm on the back of her thigh. It trembles, she can't help it, but it does.

That palm moves smoothly and purposely up to the hem of her panties and tugs, just the littlest bit.

Kara's next breath comes out ragged, and normally it would embarrass her, she recognizes that. Now? She doesn't care, just like the doesn't care that Lena has rightfully taken her strangled sound as permission to go further, to slide that palm up the taught angle of her back and unclasp her bra.

She lets the garment slide off her shoulders. There's a small urge to reach up with both hands and cover her chest, but then she wouldn't be on her knees, and Lena _told_ her...

"Pull your underwear down."

Her face burns so hot that it itches. If this is still a game, she's too drunk to ascertain the rules. All she can figure is that complying feels good, and she's filled with an excited energy at Lena being pleased with her. She reaches back and slips a finger under the elastic on her underwear, pulling them down just below the curve of her butt. She hears Lena's breath hitch, and a pregnant silence passes between them before Kara feels Lena's hand on the newly exposed skin.

"Have you ever been spanked?"

Kara shakes her head hard, her braids swinging against her ears.

“Do you want to be?”

She’s nodding before she realizes what she’s agreed to, that it’s not some kind of rhetorical question asked after a few giggles and a glass of wine.

The warm contact of Lena's palm disappears, only to come back hard and fast, stinging.

She remembers stubbing her toe at the bar one night after four Sakkarian ales and feeling a teeming, childish pain. This hurts, but the feeling is alarming, thrilling, a little like flying. She squeezes her thighs together.

Lena's hand slaps hard against the same cheek, harder than the first time, and Kara swears she doesn't move, doesn't whimper or sigh, but Lena knows all the same.

"You like it." She says it like she's assessing a machine for defects; coldly, analytically. Something about the tone makes Kara want to beg, but she doesn't. Not yet, anyway.

A few more swats, each more stinging than the next, and Lena's fingernails are pressing into the sides of her thighs, hard enough to make shapes if she were anyone else, but not hard enough to hurt.

"Turn over."

She’s embarrassed at how quickly she turns. Lena descends on her, a thigh planted between her legs, one hand on her butt, the other placed on the bed for balance. She kisses Kara, and it's like the life is being culled out of her with Lena's tongue. Lena bites her bottom lip so hard that she almost expects to taste blood.

Kara wraps an arm around Lena to bring them closer, to deepen the pressure of Lena's thigh against her. Lena is all languid movements while Kara feels wild and rutting, incapable of keeping a steady rhythm, only wanting the pressure, the pulling, the scraping and tearing.

The cool room goes uncomfortably hot as Lena moves her thigh, replaces it with two long, sliding fingers.

Kara is amazed at how wet she is, reaches out to touch the slick spot left on Lena's leg.

 

And then she wakes up.

Her head hurts. She feels like one of those slaughterhouse cows that gets killed by a bash between the eyes with a sledgehammer.

When she tries to move, she realizes that her head is not alone in its searing pain.

Everything hurts. Her knees, a shin, an elbow, her butt. She rubs her eyes and peers out of the space between her fingers. There are feet at the foot of her bed, feet that aren't hers, feet that have toenails painted purple.

Lena. She knows, because she'd painted them that color herself.

She looks down at her own body, at the covers twisted and thrown at their feet. She's naked, save the underwear still hanging around one of her ankles. Lena is fully naked, curled into a ball on her side, arm stretched out at an uncanny angle over her head.

She tries to remember last night, really tries, but is only met with small flashes – Lena's godawful costume, that whip, her annoyance at Dan or Dale or whatever his name was, monopolizing Lena's time. 

No, that wasn’t right, was it? She'd been happy for Lena, he looked healthy and had a nice laugh, though his face remained a mystery. She thinks of him again, Lena's palm on the hard curve of his chest. Who was he, anyway? Probably an alien, probably some alien pretending to be a human and – Oh. Right.

The bed dips a little too low as she gets off, frantically searching for clothes with her panties still cuffing her ankle. Once she's dressed and doesn't smell like a sweaty, salty mess, she grabs her keys and slips out the door.

\--

Donuts are her only solace. It's still early, hours before sunrise, and she's the only one in the shop besides the usual workers.

"Hey, Mario." She attempts a smile, and maybe it comes out a grimace, but it's the thought that counts. The man smiles in turn, offering Kara a small wave through the dividing window as he tosses doughy rings into a fryer. Kara presses her forehead against the glass, jaw slack.

Why was she naked? Why was Lena naked? Had they gotten too hot in the night? Sometimes she forgets to turn the furnace down, especially when it first starts getting cold. 

One of the guys behind the counter, a scrawny college kid whose name she hasn’t learned yet, he blows a straw wrapper at his co-worker.

"You're so stupid." The guy frowns, replenishing the napkin holders.

Kara feels like hopping into the fryer.

Not because her head hurts, not because her spine feels like it's been twisted like a rag, but because she remembers.

She remembers Lena's tone, the cunning lift of her chin, the way she'd made Kara’s body feel mass-less, floating and unreal.

She had sex with Lena. She had sex with Lena, and the first thing she thinks when the realization hits is not _what have I done?_

It’s _what if she hated it?_

Once the donuts are done, she hurriedly picks a dozen, choosing a pumpkin one for Lena at the last minute. She thinks pumpkin might be a vegetable, maybe.

\--

“You need to sit under the sun lamps, please.”

“I’m fine.” Kara insists around a dry mouthful of pumpkin donut. At the last second, she went off course and hurtled towards the DEO, knowing Alex had some early morning paperwork she’d be slogging through with a hangover.

“You’re seriously not gonna tell me what happened? Can I guess?”

Kara shakes her head, digging her elbows into Alex’s desk.

“Well, I’m gonna do it anyway. Let’s see… you got into a slap fight with some frat bro that told you he was more of a Superman kinda guy?”

Alex’s self-satisfied smirk borders on offensive. Kara only rolls her eyes, as tight-lipped as someone with two whole donuts in their mouth can possibly be.

“Okay, okay. You ran into the side of the L Corp tower on your way home last night? Actually, that’s not a joke, I can absolutely see that happening. You weren’t flying drunk, were you? Because that could be really dangerous, Kara.”

“No, gosh. Just quit it, Alex.”

“Fine. Final guess. Late night booty call?” Her eyes are on her computer screen, but her smirk has turned into a ghastly sort of grin.

Kara refuses to acknowledge the donut now lodged halfway into her windpipe at the suggestion. She isn’t choking, no sir. It’ll just have to impede her oxygen flow for the rest of her life if it means giving Alex the satisfaction.

After seconds of no sound or movement, Alex glances up.

“Cough, Kara.”

Kara gives two defiant shakes of her head.

“Cough it up, pronto.”

She finally lets out a begrudging cough, spitting the treacherous donut sludge into a nearby napkin.

“Gross. Just because you don’t need as much oxygen as the rest of us doesn’t mean you should let yourself choke, stupid.”

“Hey, don’t call me stupid! Why do we think it’s funny to call each other stupid? It’s not funny! It can get people into all sorts of trouble.”

She rests her cheek flat against Alex’s desk, tipping the donut box to find it empty.

“Ugh, life is meaningless!”

“Kara, if you don’t tell me what happened–”

“Can’t a girl just do dumb, regrettable things while drunk every once in awhile? Am I not entitled to that?”

Her voice is shrill, buzzing and hot against the glass underneath her lolling head. She hears the distinct click of Alex’s laptop being shut.

“Can you at least tell me if I need to go knock some skulls together? And if not... You were reckless enough to get so drunk you blew out your powers, at least tell me you got something out of it.”

Kara doesn’t remember much, just bright sparks of pain punctuated by even brighter, nearly blinding sparks of fullness, of a tickling, breathless kind of joy. She bites the fleshy inside of her cheek.

“I remember that I wasn’t scared. I mean, I remember that I wanted it.”

Alex’s most dominant, critical of eyebrows rises.

“You’re kinda freaking me out, Kara.”

“I gotta go, Alex. Sorry I ate all the donuts!”

All Kara hears as she rounds the exit is:

“Huh? You always eat all the donuts.”

\--

She’s armed with all of the things she knows Lena loves in the morning, and some things she’s seen her eat once, but it can’t hurt to be thorough. 

There’s a container of mixed fruit from the health food co-op, a cranberry scone from that bakery off Cordova, a yogurt parfait in a tiny plastic cup from Noonan’s, and three different kinds of coffees sat in paper cups, all black as sin.

When she gets to her own door, she nearly has the bright idea to knock.

Inside, Lena is still in bed, linens pulled up in thick bunches over her naked body. She’s thumbing through something on her phone, looking appropriately addled.

“Hey.” Kara’s voice barely tops a whisper, but Lena looks up all the same at it, her usual smile replaced with a few drowsy blinks.

“I, uh–” Kara coughs, walking towards the bed, knowing Lena is naked underneath the covers, naked how she was last night, naked in a way that had been made so well known to Kara’s hands.

“I brought you breakfast. Breakfasts. Breakfastses. Plural.” The plastic bag of food is quickly deposited on the edge of the bed, the coffees at the nightstand. Lena sets her phone down and draws a deep, unsettling breath as she surveys her spoils.

“Thank you, Kara.”

Kara nods, and then she finds herself nodding repeatedly, nodding while she goes and walks towards the kitchen and picks up a cereal bowl, looks at it, and places it back in the sink. Over on the other side of the apartment, she can hear Lena taking a tentative sip of one of her coffees.

This doesn’t have to be awkward. All she has to do is just say something, anything, and they can laugh about how drunk they were and how much closer they’ll be now, the best of friends, no secrets between them.

Well, except that _other_ one. 

Kara walks back towards the bedroom and begins. “Last night was…”

Lena swipes both hands hard over her face like she’s performing some kind of hangover ritual before she speaks.

“Fun? The party at the bar was fun, I mean. I…” She looks down at herself, at the sheets all wrapped around her middle.

“I don’t remember how I got here. Or anything else, obviously. Did I spill something on my costume?”

Kara doesn’t feel the blood drain from her face, only notices all at once that it’s absent. She brings a hand to her forehead, expecting cold and clammy. It might as well be hotter than the surface of the sun.

“No. Nope! Not that I, um. Not that I know of.”

Lena emits a quiet hum as she takes a sip of one of the other coffees, clearly not satisfied with the first. She makes a pensive face.

“Okay. So, no guesses as to how I ended up naked in your apartment?”

The question feels like a slap, the kind you accidentally step into when it’s meant for someone else.

“Lena, I… I just wanna say first and foremost that I don’t think you’re stupid.”

Kara is rewarded with Lena’s first smile of the morning, though it looks off, all her lipstick smudged and half gone around her mouth. If anything is stupid, it’s the fact that someone could still manage to look so pretty regardless.

“Why would you think that at all? God, what did I–”

The recognition might as well be paired with a thunderclap. Lena’s whole face changes. Kara tries to ignore how Lena’s heart picks up in tempo; it sounds wrong, like a sped-up record.

“Wow. Would you mind terribly bringing me some clothes?”

“Um, what kind? Because I have, like, pajamas, or sweats, or–”

“Just–” Lena closes her eyes tightly and Kara looks away, suddenly feels she misjudged their collective ability to laugh this off like BFFs. Instead, she feels the awful urge to cry.

“Just anything, please. Thank you.”

Kara goes to her chest of drawers, thinking back to the night before, her ridiculous insistence that Lena wear the most translucent article of clothing she owns.

She grabs a pair of old boxers and a solid red blood drive t-shirt. It’s Alex’s, one she’d gone home with years ago and never returned. She’d have to use x-ray vision to see through it, which she of course would have to be crazy to do.

Absolutely crazy.

Lena mouths a silent thank you as Kara places the clothes in a neat pile near her untouched bag of breakfast foods. All of these things, all offerings at Lena’s altar. 

Kara feels like leaving a lock of hair, wrenching out a tooth or cutting off a finger, anything to please her. Anything to make everything okay.

“I’ll be in the kitchen. You can just pull the curtain, y’know, if you need to.”

Instead, Kara pulls the curtain herself on her way out. It’s fussy, she doesn’t even remember the last time it was fully closed, but she manages.

Back in the kitchen, she grips the edge of the countertops. She generously had the laminate replaced with quartz after a few dozen disintegration incidents. With quartz, she can bear down without ruining her landlord’s day.

But she can bend steel beams, and in the end, the countertops are at the mercy of her moods. She can already see cracks crystallizing around the sink.

A measured knock on the door makes her bite her own tongue. It wouldn’t be Alex, who definitely knows better. It wouldn’t be any of the boys, who are likely both drinking caffeine and wiping grease paint off their faces before work. J'onn, perhaps, though he's never in the habit of bringing good tidings.

The knock repeats itself, louder but with no other sense of urgency.

“Kara, would you mind getting that?” Lena calls from behind the curtain, probably fully clothed at this point. Kara wonders what would happen if she made that assumption, if she walked through the veil like it was her right, and found Lena in whatever state she was in at that very moment.

What if she tossed the blood drive shirt and put her costume back on, wig and all, whip in her hand. What if that knock on the door was the executioner, coming to finish what Kara no longer could?

She opens the door with a clenched jaw. The person on the other side is decidedly not the executioner, who was tall and broad-shouldered. This is a small, older woman in a navy suit and hat, holding a crisp white Brunello Cucinelli bag in one hand.

“Hello, I’m here for Miss Luthor. Can you please get this to her? And tell her I’ll be circling the block.” She tips her hat and is off like she was never really there at all. Kara peeks inside the bag and finds neatly folded clothes that smell next-level good, like expensive french soap.

It’s a puzzle piece, surely, of Lena’s unique scent, which is always evolving but never missing a few key ingredients.

When she turns around, Lena is coming towards her, decked out in her frumpy night clothes. The boxers are tight on her thighs, not exactly a surprise, and the sight makes Kara giddy. She doesn’t smile, though.

“I’ll just change and be out of your hair. Can’t very well run around National City in pajamas.”

Kara nods, it’s all she does, but she wants to stop her. She wants to say wait, to do something, to stop the trajectory of time itself and just have a quiet, private moment to think about this.

But everything moves ceaselessly forward. Lena takes the bag and she dips back through the curtain and Kara notices, she notices then that the curtain is sheer, that when the light hits it just right you can see nearly everything on the other side. Its division is nothing more than a suggestion.

She doesn’t need to look, it’s not like her brain feels entitled to it now, like some door has been opened that can never be closed again. What would Lena think if she knew what Kara was thinking?

She goes into the bathroom. She washes her hands for no reason at all and prays, in a mean sort of way, that Lena will leave without saying goodbye. Sitting on the cool tiles, her back pressed hard against the door, she waits for nothing.

There’s a knock, knock, knock against her head. So soft, like Lena knew it would be resting there.

“Kara?” She calls from the other side. Her voice sounds hoarse, like someone that’s been crying, but alcohol has done far worse to Kara’s own vocal chords. “Kara, I’m leaving now. Goodbye.”

\--

Co-workers pass by wearing cat ears and giant fuzzy pumpkin sweaters. She expects to see Lena, has prepared herself fully by the time she’s finished with her morning e-mails, but by lunch the office is still devoid of one roving CEO.

When Eve passes by in what she can only assume is a Stevie Nicks costume, Kara stops her.

“Hey, Eve. Have you heard from Lena today?”

“She called in sick. Must’ve been a fun night, huh?”

“What? What’d she say about the...night?”

“I just know she went to a costume party. She was going to go as her mother, but I convinced her that was too scary. Not sure what she ended up doing, but it sounds like she had a good time.” Eve smiles and lifts an arm to showcase her flowing sleeves.

“Very cute.” Kara remarks, all the while thinking of exactly what Lena _ended up doing_.

“Thanks! Should I tell Miss Luthor you’re looking for her? I’m sure she’s still sitting in front of her computer.”

“No! No, that’s not necessary. I was just wondering.”

“Okay,” Eve, ever intuitive, cocks her head to the side. Her habitual smile turns contemplative.

“Any plans for Halloween, Kara?”

“Ah, no. Just gonna eat all the trick or treaters' candy, maybe drink a pumpkin spice latte, old lady stuff.”

It’s meant to make her laugh, but Eve only nods.

“Sounds fun. Well, Happy Halloween, Kara. I will… not tell Miss Luthor you asked about her.”

Kara has a momentary panic at the thought that Eve might, with zero allegiance to a junior reporter, simply tell Lena anyway. But her smile is back and as genuine as ever, and as she leaves with an extra spin to show off her dress, Kara decides to believe her.

\--

Every year Halloween itself had proven to be a light day for Supergirl, full of people making mischief, cutting off fingers while carving pumpkins, kids breaking into condemned property. 

She’s content to let the police handle missing fingers, and especially this year, with the last vestiges of her hangover lingering ‘til well after she leaves Catco.

As the evening wears on, she finds herself pulling old PR stunts; saving black cats from firecrackers, helping little kids cross four lane roads in their superhero costumes. Somewhere in between stopping a few teenagers from smashing jack-o-lanterns and retrieving a lollipop that was dropped down a sewer grate, she texts Lena:

_Should we talk? I feel like we should talk._

By the time the trick or treaters are in bed and the police scanners have gone blessedly vanilla for the night, there’s still no response.

“Fine. She doesn’t want to talk to you. That’s fine. You don’t want to talk to her either. Because… because talking is the worst. Alex has probably had sex with her friends, right? I mean, who hasn’t? Definitely James has. It’s cool. It’s what people do. They just… have sex with their friends. No biggie.”

The old man sitting across from her at Noonan’s sits his coffee cup down with a frown.

“Tough go of it, Supergirl?” Kara looks down at the emblem stretched tight across her chest. There’s ketchup dripped over the El from the fries she’d been stress-devouring. She gives the man a placating smile and says nothing.

“Personally,” He starts, thoughtfully crunching on a fun-sized candy bar from the small pile he has in front of him. “I don’t like to get frisky with friends. Course, there’s always exceptions. Sometimes you think someone’s a friend… and they ain’t a friend. That’s what happened with the wife 43 years ago, anyway.” He holds his cup up in a lonely toast before going back to the day’s newspaper.

Kara checks her phone. There’s one new message from Alex:

_Okay, my final, final guess. You got caught in a tornado and a house dropped on your head?_

She texts back _wrong character_ before paying her bill and launching into the night sky.

\--

On her way home, she almost turns tail and makes her way to Alex’s place, a Lena-free zone. At Alex’s, the bar stools have never held Lena’s weight, the coffee mugs have never touched Lena’s hands, the couch most certainly hasn’t retained the fibers of every sweater Lena has ever worn while sitting on it.

She doesn’t need the extra reminders. As her powers returned throughout the day, her memories began to patch themselves together.

She remembers how Lena felt, now. She remembers everything that was said. She remembers all the begging, the pleading, the fingers in her mouth.

It hadn’t been playful, the kind of thing you’d expect two drunk best friends to sloppily fumble through. It was like an unfolding, like Lena sat her down, opened every pocket that she had, and put a piece of herself inside.

And now she just thinks of her, every second, and the thoughts all make her nauseous with an awful, indecent hope.

She goes to unlock her front door to find it already open. She steels herself, back in Kara Danvers attire but no less ready for a reckoning if necessary.

There’s someone inside, breathing, shuffling. Their heart is quick with anxiety.

Kara swallows, using her x-ray vision to scan the apartment before she steps through the threshold. There’s someone sitting on the floor of her bedroom. That someone has something glowing in front of them.

That someone has long, dark hair. Kara smells the cardamom, pumpkin pie, fancy french soap scent so clearly now that she berates herself for even bothering with her powers.

A few hard beats of her heart pass before she realizes that an intruder might actually have been preferable to the alternative.

She sets down her things, flicking on lights, acting like she doesn’t have special vision capable of clocking someone’s whereabouts through the thickest of obstructions. When there’s nothing left to stall with, nothing left to do but make her way to bed, she pulls back the curtain.

Lena turns around quickly, her breath harsh, almost scared.

“Kara.”

“Lena!” She tries to act surprised, she does, but it’s been a long day, and she isn’t certain she’s achieved her goal.

The room is dark, and there’s a jack-o-lantern in front of Lena, carved traditionally with triangle eyes and a droll, toothy grin. It looks meticulous, like something off a Halloween greeting card.

Littering the floor in front of her are piles of candy, full bars, all of Kara’s favorites. She closes her eyes and takes a shallow breath. The whole room smells sweetly of wax and baking squash. She wonders just how long Lena has been waiting.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to literally intrude...I just wanted to make Halloween up to you.” 

Kara comes around to the other side of the pumpkin to see that it’s been carved as well, autumn leaves in different, intricate shapes. She sits, her legs crossing at the ankles.

“This is beautiful, Lena.”

“It’s my first one ever. I may have spent the better half of the evening trying to carve it, so, pretty ordinary if you take that into consideration.”

“No, it’s good. Really good.” She looks up at Lena, illuminated by the orange glow of the jack-o-lantern. Her makeup is all subtle and Lena-appropriate, Bettie Page having long since been scrubbed clean from her face.

“Thank you. I got your text, obviously. I’ve been trying not to do my whole Luthor knee-jerk emotional reaction thing, to be honest.”

Kara watches Lena’s arms of all things, the way they cross and un-cross, the lean muscle that bunches with tension. A day earlier, she would’ve reached across and held her friend’s hand.

Lena’s not clairvoyant, she knows this is true, but it’s Halloween, and stranger things have happened in National City. Even so, she takes Kara’s hand as if she came right out and asked.

“So, I’ve decided to be completely methodical about this and tell you that I regret–”

Kara's whole body winces, her eyelashes flutter. The involuntary reaction sends panic right between her eyes. Lena’s hand drops.

“–I regret acting in the manner that I did. I regret putting you in the position that I put you in. You have to understand that I would never, in my right mind, do something that I knew you would regret later.” Lena picks up a candy bar, ripping open the top and taking a conservative bite out of the end. Lena, who once told Kara that refined sugar gave her hives.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I’m always trying to do the right thing, you know, but it’s like there’s this part of me that wants to just… To just fuck everything up, Kara. But it doesn’t have to mean anything, okay?” 

Lena's face is all tight and squinting, and Kara knows that face, it's the one she gets when she's trying not to cry.

This is why you don't have sex with your best friend, she thinks. You know too much. You know that Lena revels in setting boundaries, telling people no. You know that if she were talking to anyone else, letting them down like this, her face would be completely impassive.

“I’m perfectly fine with pretending it never happened.”

The concept settles like a stone at the bottom of Kara’s stomach. She thinks of her head between Lena’s legs, her hot cheek cool against the soft flesh of her inner thigh. At that point, her braids had been undone, and the crimped hair was all matted with sweat to the sides of her neck. 

  


_“Let’s do this like, every second of every day.”_

_Her breath made clouds that condensed in front of her, lingering clots and wisps of frozen air. Lena, head back and eyes still closed, saw none of it. She squeezed Kara’s shoulder._

_“But we have to work.” Lena reminded, her hips canting as Kara placed an offhand kiss where her cheek had just rested._

_“Yeah, but work is for the birds. Let’s just quit and do this instead.”_

_Kara’s eyelids lowered towards the short curls brushing her chin. She’d just had her mouth there, maybe for hours. It occurred to her that it could’ve been another day, another week entirely. She could’ve been waking up to Thanksgiving dinner._

_“Doesn’t Dorothy have to get back to Kansas? She can’t stay over the rainbow forever.” Lena’s eyes were still closed. Kara wanted to ask her to open them, to look at her, to stop wishing this away._

_It would be gone soon enough. Morning would come and the inky black magic of the night would be lost._

_“Dorothy can stay in Oz just a little bit longer,” Kara murmured, her mouth over the point of Lena’s hip. She scraped her teeth against the bone and thought of a horse with a salt lick. Her head was already starting to hurt. “Kansas can wait.”_

  


Does she want to pretend it never happened, to punch down every memory that rises to the surface?

If she's honest with herself, she’s forgotten the way her mother’s voice sounded. She’s forgotten her first teacher’s name. She’s forgotten an entire planet, pretends at any given moment that it never existed, that she’s some other girl from some other place with a family just waiting to receive her home.

“I don’t know that I can forget.”

Lena flinches. That verge-of-crying face slips just a little further into full-on anguish.

“Un-unless you need me to. If you need me to, I will. I’ll forget everything. I’ll erase it from my memory.” Kara passes a palm across her face, a magnet wiping a hard drive.

“Well, we can’t just _go on_ like this. Oh, thanks for bringing over that bottle of wine, Kara, just don’t get too drunk like that one time when we had sex in your apartment. Ha-ha, remember that?” She’s flustered, her cheeks turning an aggravated shade of red, hands fiercely gesticulating. 

Kara rests both of her hands on the jack-o-lantern’s top.

“I don’t think that’s how it would go.”

“Then what? I mean, it’s not like it wouldn’t make the most sense to never speak of it. It’s not like you want it to happen again.”

“Who said that?”

“What? Kara, this is insane.”

“I got really desperate today and read like five different Catco articles dating back to 1985. _10 Things No One Tells You About Sleeping with A Friend, Friends with Fringe Benefits, A Friend in Need is A Friend Indeed–_ ”

“That’s awful.”

“I know, right? Who writes this stuff?”

“A version of you from 1992.” Lena bites her lip to keep from smiling, and in return, Kara feels inexplicably warm.

“The articles were useless. They all talk about checking your emotions, putting everything in neat little separate compartments. But I don’t wanna do that. My feelings are all messy, Lena, they spill all over the place. I can’t keep them separate.”

Lena's look is trembling and delicate. This isn't Dominatrix Lena, or Boss Lena, or perfect and glamorous Best Friend Lena. She's unsure of who this is, this nameless and voiceless person. She looks at Kara like she's ready to give her anything, anything at all, and Kara wants to take it. She wants the long, white lines of her throat, the ecstatic knowledge of her smile.

“I know.”

“So, I don’t want to forget. I want to remember. Is that okay?”

Lena nods. Kara leans forward.

“The thing is, though–” Kara starts. Lena’s next breath is deep and her shoulders rise and fall hard with the motion. She leans forward in kind like she’s waiting for a secret Kara’s dying to tell.

“I was pretty drunk. My memory… It’s a little soft around the edges.” The light from the jack-o-lantern makes hard shadows all along Lena’s face. Her look is grim, but it’s only a Halloween trick.

“So, any reasonable friend might give you a refresher.” She leans in closer, her breath warm against Kara’s chin.

“Exactly. A good friend wouldn’t hesitate to fill in the blanks.”

Their first kiss was tempered by countless mixed drinks and a stinging butt. The second kiss, the inaugural kiss, the one that would herald so many others, is the softest thing she’s ever felt on her lips. Lena sighs happily into her mouth when their teeth clatter.

“Friend to friend, the executioner was lame.” Kara muses, nosing at Lena’s jaw, at the dip just above her top lip. “I mean, way to put zero effort into your costume. A bag over your head? What a creep.”

Lena kisses her again, firmer, a quieting pressure.

“Yeah? Should I throw away his number?” 

Kara threads her fingers through the hair just behind Lena’s ear, her thumb on the smooth skin of her earlobe.

“Yeah, I think that’s for the best. I mean, where’s the ingenuity?”

“Absolutely. I heard _you_ sewed your own costume.”

“Actually, that was Winn.”

“Oh, well, maybe I should just go call Winn–” Lena makes to turn away, but her face is captured in both of Kara’s hands and her laughing mouth kissed on every possible corner.

“Happy Halloween, Kara.” The words are muffled by the press of their lips. Kara glances at her alarm clock – 12:01. Halloween is over. Whatever spell the day had cast over them would already be gone, swept up into the fallen leaves of the new month. 

**Author's Note:**

> **Lena’s conversation with the cab driver:
> 
> “She’s cute, right?”
> 
> “Yeah. Your pal?”
> 
> “Pal? I would say so.”
> 
> “Your girlfriend?”
> 
> “How do you say… in another life?”


End file.
